Why do planets look like stars in night sky?

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The sun shines on the surfaces of the planets, which reflects back to earth. The planets are smaller and much dimmer than stars, but since the stars are so far away, their light is scattered and appear to have the same brightness as the planets.

Planets tend to be brighter (although not always). They also do not appear to twinkle, except when close to the horizon. The only sure way to tell is that stars don't move in …relation to each other over a period of a few years.

It is not definite that the objects that you saw is satellites, but there is a high percentage that they are. There are TV satellites and others as well. Not every single one …of them are from one country though. I saw a ton of them last night and I was overjoyed to see such wonder. I thought they were planets or maybe comets but comets are much faster than the ones you saw and planets don't really move that fast ether. So the chance of them being satellites have increased even more! Hope I've answered your question. Check out other websites to confirm.

The stars you see at night are light years away. That means thatthe light from them has taken years for to reach us. Therefore wesee that star as it was years ago. Contrary to… the previous answer,the stars are not dead. Most of the stars that we can seewithout a telescope are within a few hundred light years of us, sowe see them as they were a few hundred years ago at most. Theclosest is just over 4 light years away, so we see it as it wasabout 4 years ago. Most stars last billions of years.

Because the are so far away from earth Well we all know each planet dose not illuminate like earth dose not shine. What causes this is that the planet is so far away that wh…en light reflects off the planet all you see is the light but when you use a good telescope you can actually see the planet.

Two ways. The less accurate is to look closely at the object. If it twinkles even slightly, it is a star - if it shines with a steady light, it is likely a planet. On a very s…till night (atmospherically) it is hard to use this method. The more relable method is a telescope. It need not be large - a 60mm refractor will do. Stars still look like "stars" in any telescope, but planets resolve into tiny "discs" in a telescope.

It's because we are very, very, very distant (far away) ,that can be long as space which is endless according to scientists, from the stars. In space they are actually very, v…ery, very large. The far away effect looks like they are so small since the stars can be even 20 billion light years away. If you want to see it closer up try using a telescope or go to an observatory to look at the stars.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Neptune looks like a star too, but is only visible in telescopes. Uranus can be seen with the naked eye on really dark ni…ghts, but it is quite faint, which is why no one discovered it until the late 18th century. The reason ancient Greeks knew the first five were NOT stars is because their position changes with respect to that of the background stars.

there are certain times when those planets... like venus..... are in an alignment with the sun and the sun's light... letting those planets REFLECT the same light the stars do…...... the sun's light...... without the sun's light..... the stars too would be dark ^^

You see stars because nuclear fusion is going on inside them,generating huge amounts of energy, and some of it leaves the star in the form ofvisible light. In other words, sta…rs make their own light, and they are sources oflight. You see planets, moons, and anything else in the sky, because thesun shines on them and lights them up, like a flashlight.